Face the week
Embrace the challenges and opportunities
Agitate for a better world
Fight for someone you don’t know.
American Robin. November 3, 2020.
Confession: I’m still in my pajamas and am working from bed today.
Gathering my strength for Ready, Set, Go!
I’ll be there soon, I promise.
I keep meaning to write a funny post about magpies and the neighbor’s dog, complete with lots of photos I took several days ago. But my energy level’s still not there (in large part because we haven’t been able to open windows today due to wildfire smoke which means the house is approximately two hundred degrees).
Instead, I went to Pixabay and found a photo that made me smile.
Image by Michael Mosimann from Pixabay
I hope these little pigs also bring you a smile.
This spent phlox is a pretty accurate representation for how I’m feeling today.
August 6, 2020
Bloomed out.
Worn out.
Depleted.
But just as this hardy perennial will gather its resources in order to bloom again in the future, so will I. Hopefully, it won’t take me until next summer to do so.
Today’s been exhausting on multiple levels: personal, professional, societal, and human-on-the-planet. I just took a much-needed nap and am now posting this burst of yellow as a reminder of all the beauty in our world.
July 12, 2020.
Next on my self-care agenda? Scrubbing out my kitchen sinks.
Please do whatever you need to take care of yourselves.
I use this blog to maintain a record of my day-to-day and appreciate the documentation it provides me. This site means more to me than anyone else who might happen upon it, and I acknowledge this truth.
So why is it still sometimes so hard to give myself permission to post a regular day’s snapshot of me when I feel less-than-great?
Image by Monsterkoi from Pixabay
For instance: I ran today (after not running much over the past quarantine months), and instead of experiencing typical post-run endorphins, I wanted to punch something. Still do. I’m feeling stabby. I’m feeling old and slow and tired and fucking over it all.
There, I said it. Welcome to my head.
Image by Ben Kerckx from Pixabay
Okay, I’m tapping out. Sleep well.
This funny little tale unfolded as I sat on the patio with my camera. I was too tired to continue gardening and hoped that focusing on something beside the thoughts in my head would improve my physical and emotional state.
It did. Not a lot, but some.
. . .bad hair days aren’t enough reason to accelerate the spread of COVID-19.
Wildebeest at Zebu’s graduation. May 11, 2018.
Yesterday, Denver nurses stood in intersections to remind the selfish flag-waving assholes in huge trucks that their demands to reopen the state so they could get their nails done were putting healthcare workers and others at risk. Today, Colorado’s governor (Jared Polis) announced he was lifting our stay-at-home order on April 27.
I’m so exhausted.
Oy. I’ve been working all afternoon, trying to finish the edits on my work-for-hire project. I’m this close to being done and wanted the satisfaction of waking tomorrow morning to a clean slate (aka, time to pursue my own project). Alas, it’s not to be.
Image by Alexas_Fotos from Pixabay
Instead, I’m admitting it’s time to call it for the day. I’m off to wash my face and have a cold beer. Tomorrow is another day and COMPLETION WILL BE MINE.
Some days are like that
dead tired and out of focus
now it’s time for sleep.
I’m exhausted. I’ve got mud in my eyes and aches in my bones from sitting so much this past month. Worst of all, my ending isn’t coming together as envisioned. Time to create a new vision in preparation for next month’s revision.
I’ve spent a sizable portion of this afternoon going through my email account, deleting messages I don’t want. There are currently 2,186 emails remaining, and 222 of those are unread.
I have repetitive motion pain in my right hand/wrist/arm, my eyes feel fried, and my brain can no longer compute.
I’m calling it a day.
It’s been a murky day filled with emotions, confusion, and an overall sense of TIRED. But I finally succumbed to cute Emma the Dog’s wriggling reminder that it was time for our daily walk, and went out to do just that.
Movement plus a smiling, happy dog by my side brought clarity to the day.
I’m feeling so much better. Today, Dog is most definitely this woman’s best friend.
I’m writing the final scenes of my middle-grade novel.
I know where the story goes and how it ends.
However, that doesn’t make the process any less exhausting.
I’ve got lots of characters coming together,
and they’re all toting individual motivations and plot lines.
Choreographing these scenes feels a bit like juggling chainsaws and kittens.
The good news is that it’s only a first draft.
I need to remember that these scenes do not need to be perfect.
We got up at 5:30 this morning, Uppsala time, and just barely caught the-bus-we-thought-was-a-train (when we purchased the tickets yesterday) to Arlanda Airport in Stockholm. From there we flew to Amsterdam. After promising that all checked luggage was our own and that no one had asked us to bring anything on the plane, we got on a packed plane. Our flight to Minneapolis took 7+ hours. Once in the airport, I got busted by the agricultural-sniffing dog for carrying an orange across the ocean. I relinquished the citrus and then we had to re-check our bags and go through security again because, you know, we could’ve spent that 7+ –hour flight filling our shoes with knives. We’re now sitting in a bar/restaurant, drinking local craft beer and eating fries while we wait for our flight to Denver.
It’s already been a loooong day, and there’s still miles to go.
Here’s a somewhat appropriate image from our last day in Stockholm:
Almost home.
.
On an exhausted field, only weeds grow.
~ Henryk Sienkiewicz
However, tomorrow is another day.
.
.
.
Just got home from spending the afternoon with my in-laws.
I love them very much.
And I’m exhausted.
Time to refill this introvert’s well.
.
I’ve been having a really hard time with my middle-grade this past week or so. I didn’t meet my revision goal for the week and was struggling with how to move forward. I was feeling burned out and not-so-enthusiastic about my writing endeavors. Any of them.
It was like an ongoing game of tug-of-war in my head. Back and forth swung my thoughts, emotions, and physical responses. Quit or not quit? Some or all? Finish this or start that? Fiction or nonficiton?
Image from Morguefile.
But as I did my cool-down walk this morning after a trail run, I realized that not making progress on the revision of my middle grade was part of why I feel burned out. It’s exhausting to be in forever-limbo with a project.
I wanted to quit because I felt shitty but I can’t quit because that will make me feel even shittier. In other words, writing can most certainly tire me out, BUT not writing may ultimately be even more draining.
Memo to self: sometimes I’m most tired when I don’t.
(Despite my wonderful little epihany, I am REALLY looking forward to finishing the damned book.)
.
If you presume to love something,
you must love the process of it much more than you love the finished product.
~ John Irving
Right now I’m not entirely sure I love the fiction-writing process. As I revise this young adult novel, I’m starting to question whether I have any business trying to get published. I received some feedback on another manuscript that has me questioning my talent, and today I’m more wobbly than I’ve been in some time.
So. The bad news is I’m scared and exhausted and wishing someone could cut out this obsessive writer part of me so I’d never have to feel this way again.
The good news? My experience tells me that this ugly fog will eventually lift and then fade to a very faint memory. Lather, rinse, repeat.
I might not always love the process, but I trust it.
.
“There cannot be enduring peace, prosperity, equality and brotherhood in this world if our aims are so separate and divergent, if we do not accept that in the end we are people, all alike, sharing the Earth among ourselves and also with other sentient beings, all of whom have an equal role and stake in the state of this planet and its players.”
~ Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck
Double-blooming clematis from my garden.
Tracy Abell 